The Dance of Fate
by thedorkygirl
Summary: Mac tries to come to terms with her slip of the tongue to Sturgis and her feelings for Harm meanwhile, Harm is making momentary slips himself when thinking about his relationship with Mac. Where will this lead them in the future? GIVEN UP
1. Mission

**The Dance of Fate**

**Author**: Keren Ziv  
**Summary**: Mac tries to come to terms with her slip of the tongue and her feelings for Harm meanwhile, Harm is making momentary slips himself when thinking about his relationship with Mac. Where will this lead them in the future? Three part songfic.  
**Spoilers**: Easiest way to say it: the episode where Mac admits to Sturgis that she loves Harm. I mean, come on, isn't that the best episode for shipperness?

Part One: Mission

Colonel Sarah MacKenzie strode quickly into her office and shut the door with a forceful push of her hand. The look on her face was determined. Tiner, who had been approaching with some papers that Harriet Sims had sent him to the colonel with, took one look at Mac's face through the office blinds and turned back to Harriet, throwing his eyebrows up. In one clear gesture he said wordlessly, 'I'm afraid to go in there now.'

Harriet gave a barely perceptible sigh. Tiner brightened considerably. It wasn't in his job description to risk his neck by presenting a highly irate colonel with some news article on her ex-fiancé and some tiny blonde lovebunny he was getting married to in two week's time. Even if Harriet had drawn little horns on the face of the bride-to-be and scrawled in Sharpie over the photo one phrase: ANOREXIC TEENAGER, Tiner wasn't going in. Tiner had been prepared to give the colonel a grin and say, handing the paper over, "I give it her age divided by two so, eighteen months?" Now he was slowly backing away from the office, eyes as large as possible to make it seem as if he was earnestly working on something, a trick he had learned the first few months he had worked at JAG.

Tiner bumped into Commander Harmon Rabb as he did his silent march backwards. Characteristically caught off guard, Tiner stumbled forward, stuttered on his feet backwards, then finally waltzed toward the left, crashing into Lieutenant Singer. Tiner gasped a hurried, "Sorry sir!" before turning to attending to Singer. Papers spilled all over the floor, Singer looked at Tiner with what was classified amongst any and all whom had the privilege of working both with and against her as the Ice Death.

Tiner sighed as he stooped over under Singer's threatening glare to pick up the papers and files that he had knocked out of her arms. It was going to be a very hard day, he could tell, and contrary to modern man's view of the world it was getting longer by the minute. He was going to end up spending three lifetimes before it came time for him to leave for home.

If he noticed how Harm barely paid him any notice, Tiner didn't register it past the first barrier in his mind. Nor did he realize the fact that the Commander had just gone into the office that he had been studiously avoiding for the past two-and-half-minutes: Colonel MacKenzie's office. Harriet, however, saw Harm enter. Privately noting the look on the Commander's face, Harriet came to the same conclusion that Tiner had come to only moments previously it was going to be a long day.

_(asterisk) _

Mac barely glanced up as Harm entered the room and let it slam with a bang that rattled the blinds. Her mouth set in a locked position, her eyes fixated on the papers that were in front of her, she hoped desperately that her hands weren't shaking in anger. She waited for him to speak, knowing that he was waiting for her to speak. Well, she wasn't going to! It would serve him right if he waited all day, just to have her begin the conversation and then -

"Mac," Harm said. Damn. He'd started first. Mac was forced to put down the papers she'd been holding studiously in front of her face and look at him. Mac glanced halfheartedly toward the space under her desk - it looked to be just to right size for a marine. "Mac," he started again, "I'm not sure what I did, but I'm sorry."

Mac glared at him. Harm didn't seem to take heart in this and shifted uncomfortably. He too looked as if he wanted to find someplace to crawl instead of speaking to Mac. She deepened her glare and narrowed her eyes. Just wait until later on, she thought, and I will get you but good, Squid.

Making herself take a deep breath, Mac spoke slowly, as if to a child. "You," she said, "ridiculed me in court." She bit her tongue - literally - to keep from adding that he hadn't apologized directly after the happening and that Singer had taunted her all through lunch with small references to the argument that Harm had used - successfully - in his case.

Harm looked truly puzzled. He walked tentatively closer to the female marine. "I did no such thing!" he declared, giving her the lowering of the chin and raising of the eyebrows that was sohim when he was confused, angry, embarrassed, excited, flirting . . . that naval aviator needed to get him some new facial expressions. "I can't remember one bit of my argument when I was rude or ridiculed you. I gave a barely derisive snort when Singer was up there, too! Let's face it, you sighed louder than I when she was speaking."

Mac gave him a withering look. It would have wilted flowers in an instant. "Let's go over the case, shall we?" Mac said, her own eyebrows raised in a sort of sarcastic body-language-treaty for Harm to receive. Harm nodded without speaking, so Mac continued. "The case was about a female marine named Prasad who had filed a formal protest against her commanding officer, correct?" Once again, Harm nodded mutely.Good boy , Mac thought to herself. "She claimed - correctly, I might add - that Major Ramirez was unfairly biased when it came to recommendations for promotions and when it came for transfers out of country."

"She said that because she was a woman," Harm continued on for Mac, "she wasn't allowed to take the same jobs that the men had - namely, those in Afghanistan and other countries where there is conflict in the Middle East. The Gunny said that she was more than qualified to go there. She had family there and had visited Iraq every summer she was a child to spend time with them. She knew the language, including several local dialects."

"You turned it from her being a woman into being not qualified because she was a woman." Mac paused, slowly turning the words over in her mouth. "You took her physical abilities and turned them against her, Harm. You made it sound as if the idea of having a female marine was hilariously funny." She almost let the tears reach her eyes then. She stopped and allowed herself to collect her thoughts. "I had to sit there in court and hear you dispute the career choice I had made, Harm. And then you didn't even apologize afterward."

_(asterisk) _

Harm reached over and touched her arm. Mac jerked it back angrily, picking up her large brown eyes to look into his own sea-colored globes. Harm sighed; his shoulders slumped. "I didn't think you'd take it that way, Mac," he said in way of explanation.

Mac jumped to her feet, anger splashed across her face. "Didn't think I'd take it like what, Harm? You didn't think that I'd be insulted that you think I wouldn't be good at my job? No - that I'm not good at my job! Because that's what you said! You said that people who were physically unable to meet the standards set for by the marines had no right to request to be there."

"No," Harm said, backing up, "I didn't. I said that they didn't have any right to expect the standards be lowered. Didn't you go through something similar to this with a video tape and a military bloopers show?" He gave an attempt at a grin. "You just heard the wrong parts, Mac. You are physically set to perfection. You'd be great in combat situations. Youare great in combat. I was saying that she wasn't ready for it. I was saying that since she wasn't ready that she shouldn't expect the qualifications for everyone else to be bent for her."

Mac looked down at the papers she had tossed aside three minutes earlier. "You didn't think about how I would take it?" she asked quietly, allowing herself to rest her elbow on her desk and place the side of her hand on her brows.

Harm frowned. "I did think about how you would take it," he said. "I just thought that you'd take it a different way. Maybe I wasn't clear enough on court. If people think that I don't like the idea of women in combat, I'm going to get a lot of the oddball cases. And I think there will be at least a few dozen people whoknow of a female marine who can whip my six any day of the week."

Mac allowed him to view a semblance of a grin. It was oh so true. "You bet your six on that, Commander," she said. She broke into a real smile then. "I don't have any hard feelings, Harm," she said. She did, though. She felt as if she'd been made a jest in front of a courtroom filled with her peers and she hadn't caught on to the correct topic until it was too late. How did he manage to do that to her? "I feel sort of foolish." She stuck out her hand in camaraderie. Make the truce now, Marine, she told herself.

Impulsively, Harm reached forward into the handshake and gave Mac a half-hug. "I'm sorry that I hurt you," he said. Leaning back, he shot her a thousand-watt smile. "Good to know that the colonel has a few weak points," he said, causing her to smile. "I was beginning to think that she was made out of steel." Standing, Harm took his leave from Mac in the form of a curt nod and a hand-touch before walking swiftly, but without haste, out of the room.

_(asterisk) _

Breathing out slowly through her nose, Mac realized that she had been holding her breath since the hug. When had she taken in air and forgotten to release it? Was it during the first few seconds when the smell of his cologne reached her as he covered the distance between them in that show of friendship?

That was all it was to him, Mac told herself quietly. Harm saw nothing more in her than his best friend. And she had been content with that for . . . heaven knows how little time it had actually been before she wasn't content with that. But she had lived without anything else for years, and she knew that she could do it for many more. It was life of necessity and Mac knew that she could go on a live it, even caring for other men by it. Hell, she'd done it all too many times before. Though, she admitted with a grin, not as many times as Harm has.

Have his been just as empty as hers? When he was conversing with whomever over dinner, did he inadvertently lose his place in the conversation with thoughts of her? Did he hear her voice, sometimes, during the first few moments of waking and sleep when Renee, perhaps, had called out his name in groggy tones? Mac shook her head. This was not the time nor the place for such traitorous thoughts. She was at work. She must keep a profession touch to all her actions and that included the act of thinking. An unnecessary slip of the tongue could be disastrous.

Like Sturgis. How in the world did he do that? It was if he was secretly mining information from everyone to later write a juicy tell-all book entitled JAG: The Lives Behind the Officers. He'd make it a number one, a best seller, in just a few short weeks. People would call it fiction, but those in the military would look at one another with worried looks on their faces and wonder if anyone else noticed the case which seemed to closely parallel one that they themselves had participated in. Bobbi Latham would have a field day and her poor hair and make-up man would be kept running back and forth from one press conference to the next until he collapsed, a puddle of broken man, in the middle of the congresswoman's dressing room. Bobbi'd have him swept up and then would go on to the next on the list.

With those comforting thoughts, Mac settled into her work with a determined air. When, twenty minutes later, Tiner interrupted with some comment about the preschooler that Mic was marrying and the page of the paper with the wedding announcement on it, she laughed and asked him where he'd gotten it. He had departed from her office a good deal more at ease than when he'd entered and Harriet took his place for a few minutes of gossip before the general hobnob of work overthrew their precious moments of sanity and insanity intertwined into the regular comradeship that Mac and Harriet shared.

The day got better as it went, there was no doubting that. Mac was fairly certain that the small stunt of emotions she'd pulled that morning would be forgotten long enough to allow her to take Harm out for lunch. Maybe she'd even join him for a salad before a burger, of course.

_(asterisk) _

Harm was just getting started on his case when an unusually peppy marine popped into his office with a smile on her face. At first, he wondered vaguely if there'd been a recount then he realized that he was not George Bush and that Mac was not Al Gore. For one thing, Harm was pretty certain that he was smarter than ol' Dubya and a hell of a lot better looking, if you asked him and for another Mac had too much, well, personality to be Gore.

"Well, I was going over our schedules, Harm," Mac said as she dropped two or three files on his desk, "and I've figured out a lunch break that will suit both of us. So, c'mon, wanna go grab a salad? I've done the clockwork, we have the time."

"Fuzzy math," Harm muttered to himself. Mac raised an eyebrow. Harm shook himself back into the conversation. "I said, uh, sounds fun. Count me in, Jarhead. But I didn't thinkyou," and he smirked, "would go for the salad for lunch. You're more of a 'extra lettuce on my burger' type of girl, aren't you?"

"I like tomatoes too," Mac said defensively. "They are all, uh, red and such. Makes me think 'Ohh, red things.' I like red things." She blinked. Harm looked at her slightly confused. Mac decided to elaborate. "When I was a kid, I liked red food. For my fifth birthday I had a red cake." She smiled, thinking about one of those rare happy moments in her childhood.

Harm smiled at her. "You know, I went through a phase like that once in my childhood too," he informed her. She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yes, I'm telling the truth. I used to put ketchup on everything. Pancakes, too."

Walking out of the office and towards the elevator with him, Mac exclaimed, "Ketchup? On Pancakes?" Snorting, she faced him as she backed into the small box of the machine. "You're joking, right?"

Harm shook his head sadly. "I only wish I were. I look back at that and think, 'What was I thinking?' I mean . . . on hotdogs, yes, but on pancakes? Those are not ketchup things. Those are jam-mie things those are syrupy things, don't you think?"

They'd reached his car now. "Definitely," Mac said. "I do like peanut butter on my pancakes, though. Uncle Matt used to say that they were cowboy pancakes." She idly played with her seat belt as Harm started up the vehicle.

"Cowboy pancakes?" Harm looked mildly amused as he maneuvered through traffic. He had the grace not to grin outright, though, which probably saved him from being put into a headlock by an angry marine.

Mac blushed. "Oh, God, I wanted to be a cowboy so bad when I was a kid. I thought it would be such a great job. I use to try to yodel." Mac snorted here. "I was so horrible. Then this boy Jimmy told me that I couldn't be a cowboy because I was a girl."

Harm grinned at her as he pulled into the parking lot of a small restaurant. "The nerve of him? How old were you two?" He turned off the engine and stepped out of the car, walking to the other side to open Mac's door.

"I was nine, he was twelve, and I broke his wrist. Nobody believed him when he told them that I'd pushed him out of the tree house." She allowed herself to put her hand in Harm's when he offered, helping her out of the car. Thrilling in the slight contact, she kept it there slightly longer than necessary. It felt so nice to be able to share this moment with Harm. It was comfortable, an action like that of an old married . . . Dropping her hand quickly to her side, she continued hurriedly, "Jimmy was a troublemaker. And I was a short little kid who looked cute in her cowboy boots that she got for Christmas."

Was it Mac's imagination, or did Harm look slightly disappointed as she looked up at him? She frowned, more to herself than at anything else, and walked next to him as they made their way into the waiting area.

Twenty minutes later, Mac was looking at her salad with a bemused expression on her face. "I'm not sure what this is," she said after a moment, poking the object with her fork. "Was it alive at some point in its existence?"

Harm looked away from Mac's hair, which had fallen carelessly down, cascading her face in dark waves, and to what she was fiddling with on her plate. "It's a radish, Mac," he said, grinning. "Like the fairy story. Surely you knew that? You must have eaten them before." He leaned back and grinned at Mac. Only a third of the way done with her salad, Harm was twice as finished as she.

Mac looked at him with a baneful tint. "It doesn't look like anything I've ever had before. I just noticed it now. I wonder if I ate them earlier when I was . . . well, eating . . . or if I've only just uncovered them. I'm sort of worried. What if I have an allergic reaction? I don't think I should eat anymore of this. You can never tell what'll harm a marine." She shot Harm a teasing glance. "Want the rest?" she asked.

At that moment a shrill sound interrupted their conversation. Mac rolled her eyes and reached into her purse, pulling out her cell phone. "I'm really sorry," she said as she opened it. Mac watched her place the small device to her ear and mouth and suddenly, he was jealous. To be able to whisper secrets and love and have it whispered back . . .

He snapped to when Mac shut her cell phone with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry," she said again. "That was Bud. I have to get on a plane to California to follow up a lead in my case. I'll be back in three days." She frowned. "It got a little more complicated than I expected it to be. Sturgis has come up with some inventive ways to counter my clients claims of innocence." She sighed. "I'll call you when I get there, okay?"

Harm nodded. "I'm taking your salad," he said, standing up when she rose. Mac smiled at his gentlemanly ways and Harm was suddenly struck on how wonderful one little smile could make him feel.

"Okay," Mac said. "I'll call you." She wondered if perhaps she should just postpone the stupid trip and stay here with Harm, toying with her salad and casting envious glances at the plates of other diners.

"You do that." Harm gave her a smile that hid his thoughts. He wanted her here, with him, to talk to when he could see her face and know, by the slight curving of her lips or the height of her eyebrows, what she was thinking in relation to what she was saying. He wanted her here to . . . don't go there, Commander, he warned himself. "See you."

"See you," Mac said, turning. Harm sat back down and pulled her salad over to him.


	2. Objective

The Dance of Fate

Part Two: Objective

_(asterisk) _

Working in his office the a week of afternoons later, Harm let himself glance up and out of the office through the blinds toward where Mac was standing, talking to Tiner with a rather formidable looking expression on her face. Grinning at the yeoman's uncomfortable attitude, Harm made himself go back to the papers that he had been working on before he had wandered his attention out the window. Mac had come back, as she had said, three days after her departure. Triumphantly, she had won her case only that afternoon. However, and Harm wasn't certain on this point, Tiner seemed to have . . . slept with the defendant's sister.

Sizing up the young petty officer, Harm privately concluded that he wouldn't have the brass ones to steal a kiss from the pretty Miss Kingston, much less sleep with her. Tiner just didn't have the suave nature that Harm associated with those sweep-you-off-your-feet-and-into-the-sheets type. Harm, well, Harm was one of those men. But not past a certain degree. And he wasn't that good; he'd certainly never managed to get Mac into bed in those first few months or even the first year of their partnership when everything was still hinged on whether or not they would act on their attraction for each other or just leave it professional and impersonal.

Well, they'd left it professional to some degree, but very un-impersonal to a higher degree. Mac was, Harm knew, his best friend in the entire world. Perhaps even a better friend than Sturgis, no matter how many years he had on Mac. There were just so many things that he had with Mac that he could never have with Sturgis . . . one of the most important of those things was an active role in Harmon Rabb's fantasies.

Harm glanced up, as if the world could see his thoughts projected on the office door, and grimaced. He was treading in dangerous ground here, thinking about Mac like that at work. He didn't want to say anything that would be an inadvertent mess-creator in his all-too-fragile relationship with the Marine Colonel. Add to that the fact that Mac seemed to blow up at him for the littlest things these days last week's court adventure notwithstanding and you have a tiny tightrope to walk indeed.

Strike that, Harm thought. Add to all that his current track record at relationships. He grinned ruefully. He really was a hopeless flirt, he reflected, and it landed him in the most difficult predicaments. Sometimes, he added with a thoughtful look down at the files he was supposed to be studying, it landed him in the most delightful beds. Who was that one girl . . . Maria Elena . . . pretty, but no spirit.

Mac, now, Mac had spirit. Mac was like every woman Harm had ever slept with, a few he hadn't slept with but wished he had, and that one high school English teacher of his whom he'd loved in his freshman and sophomores years, all rolled into one very feisty female Marine. Mac was like waking up in one December morning and turning on the shower to find that your hot water heater is broken and you're suddenly drenched in ice water. Mac was like racing down the stairs on Christmas morning and finding the bike that'd you'd wanted since July under the tree. Mac was like falling asleep and having a wonderful dream only to wake up and find out that the dream is not half as great as living itself.

Mac was like walking into the White House Rose Garden and falling head over heels in love with the most beautiful woman you'd ever seen in your entire life that happened to look like someone else you'd loved. But Diane had not been like Mac. Diane had been Diane; beautiful, intelligent, but with none of the passion, the fury, that made Colonel MacKenzie Harm's Marine.

No. Not his Marine. She didn't want to be his Marine. Harm had better get this daydreams and thoughts out of his head before something regrettable happened . . . like blurting out to the Admiral that he wanted to marry that Marine giving his yeoman a hard time over there.

Yes, he'd better stop daydreaming.

_(asterisk) _

Tiner cast a wary glance at Colonel MacKenzie and Commander Rabb, standing near the doors of their offices talking quietly together, before summoning up his courage and walking straight into the lion's den. "Colonel MacKenzie, ma'am, Commander Rabb, sir, the Admiral would like to see you in his office."

Commander Rabb picked up on Tiner's nervousness and obviously knew what was bothering Tiner. Giving the petty officer a grin and raising his eyebrows, Harm placed his hand in the small of Colonel MacKenzie's back and guided her, Tiner was pleased to see, around the yeoman and the long way to admiral's office. Tiner also noticed, though he said nothing about it to anyone, how the Rabb's hand stayed on MacKenzie's back, with his other hand crossed in front of him to touch her elbow, and how MacKenzie said nothing to dissuade him from this all-to-close-for-the-office manner in which he was behaving. Was something going on there that Tiner hadn't noticed?

Tiner gave up that notion as soon as he thought of it. Commander Rabb would sooner go against regs and Colonel MacKenzie would lose a fight with the civilian. They were both too military. The commander had too much respect for the bars he wore on his shoulder and the colonel . . . well, the colonel could just about kiss anyone's six who crossed her path.

Satisfied with his diagnosis, Tiner went studiously to where he would be within shouting distance of Admiral Chedwiggen but out of the eyes and ears of Lieutenant Singer. It was best to do his job without the eyes of the human version of the kamodo dragon breathing down his neck. He shuddered, remembering what he had learned about kamodo dragons at school. He could picture it now, Singer biting him and letting the dirty little critters in her mouth slowly poison you for two days. Glancing around the room to make certain that Singer was most certainly _not _there, Tiner made a quick route to his usual spot.

He could hear the admiral speaking to the commander and the colonel in the office. Something about a manslaughter charge that they were prosecuting and Sturgis and Singer _Singer _was in there! were defending.

"Rabb, you and MacKenzie will probably want to go over the papers today before the initial meeting of the defendants and yourselves today at one o'clock," the admiral was saying. AJ handed Mac some files and she put them in her left hand without thinking about them.

Mac broke in. "Sir, it's almost twelve-twenty right now! Why weren't we informed of these charges before now?" She cast a glance across the room at Singer, who was standing alone as Sturgis wasn't in the office at the moment, as if inferring that the lieutenant had something to do with it simply by being there. Behind her, Mac felt Harm's presence and his hand on her back, warning her, she knew, that she needed to be a little less obvious with her dislike of Singer. She took a half-a-step back, slightly pleased that Harm didn't move an inch back; Mac was closer to him than she'd been in a while and it was intoxicating.

"I'm sorry, Mac, but this just came it. It was being held by the secnav on some legal difficulties . . ." AJ broke off here, and behind her Mac heard Harm give a derisive snort. "Something you would like to say, Commander?" Admiral Chedwiggen demanded in his sternest take-no-prisoners tone of voice.

Harm immediately stiffened into his sailor-boy stance. Mac could see him in front of her right now, without having to close his eyes, and could see the hand-in-the-cookie-jar look on his face. He cleared his throat. "Well, uh, Admiral, I was just wondering if it was a cousin or a nephew of the secnav's." Harm paused and added, "Sir," belatedly.

In front of her the admiral grinned. "Nephew of his by his wife's side." Mac blinked. Had the admiral just . . . no, couldn't be. She shook her head, to rid herself of the visions that seemed to be plaguing her. Sometimes, she concluded, she was just as loony as they got. "MacKenzie, you're first chair, Rabb you've got second. Lieutenant, I hope that you'll tell the commander that he has first chair and you'll have second." Mac privately agreed. If she wasn't expressly told otherwise, Mac was certain that Singer would probably claim first chair as her own. "Dismissed," the admiral said.

"Aye aye, sir," the three officer said before turning and leaving the room quickly.

Singer cast Harm an admiring look. "That was a pretty spunky thing you did in there," she informed the commander. Off his blank look, she elaborated. "Well, you asked exactly the question I was wondering. I for one thought it might be a third or fourth cousin." She gave turned her mouth up into its usual sneer and sauntered away. As she left, a thought struck Mac's mind. I bet she's a very lonely woman, Mac thought.

Mac turned to Harm. "So, flyboy, we gonna order in some takeout and have an all-luncher in your office?" she asked, an impish grin on her face. She reached toward him and dragged him through the door that entered his office. "Ooph. You weigh too much to drag like this. Walk!" she ordered.

Harm complied with her, walking into the room as far as the door. "I'm game if you're game," Harm said, leaning against the door frame as she picked up his phone to dial a restaurant that had decent food as well as the stuff that Harm claimed was healthy for him. "Just remember to tell someone to wait down for our food and not leave the poor delivery guy down there, scared to death, like last time."

"Will do," Mac promised, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. She glanced down at Harm as he opened the files on her desk and spread them over the work she already had opened on it. "Hey, watch that, squid uh, hello? Yes, could I order . . ."

_(asterisk) _

He was going to have to say something to her. Harm decided that during lunch at the office that afternoon when Mac got mustard from her turkey sandwich on her top lip and Harm reached over with his napkin to dab it off. He paused, only for a second, and suddenly that second turned two and three seconds, into minutes and hours, into days and months, into years, and he saw himself watching her and never saying anything at all for fear of saying the wrong thing.

He couldn't let that happen. He also, Harm realized, let his fear make such a big decision for him. That was why, when he dropped the napkin and pulled his hand back as quickly as humanly possible, he didn't say anything. The silence hung thickly in the air as Harm watched Mac from the corner of his eye, her emotions playing out swiftly across her face. He could read the way that her lips parted and that they indicated that she was startled. He saw that under her lashes she, too, was studying him, with a puzzled look to her and . . . was it sadness? Or would Harm classify it more as disappointment?

No, it was merely his imagination. He sighed as he went back to his tofu concoction. He had it bad; looking for things in places that didn't have them, places that wouldn't have them in the most conceivable of all his daydreams. Harm had broken anything that Mac had felt for him too long ago for it to matter much. He knew it in the gentle companionship that she handed him whenever they were alone and in dangerous territory. He needed to talk to her.

_(asterisk) _

Harm was just picking up the mess from his lunch and making certain that the papers he and Mac had been working were in a file to take to her office when Sturgis came in. Harm barely gave him a thought as he searched for something that he was certain wasn't in the folder.

"I hear you got the tough job of prosecution in a manslaughter case against one of the secnav's nephews," Sturgis said casually, leaning against the desk. There was no mistaking the humor in his voice. "Second chair?" he asked.

Harm dropped the folder, disgusted at not being able to find that one. "Yeah," Harm replied. "How'd you know?" He disheartenedly picked up the papers on his desk, searching for the document. It wasn't there! Where in the world could it be? he wondered silently to himself.

"Because if Mac had gotten second chair, you two would have eaten in her office and she would be the one scrambling to find the papers while the other was speaking to Lieutenant Singer," Sturgis said with a smug smile on his face. Harm frowned. Sometimes Sturgis thought he knew _everything_. It was very annoying, like an older brother who won't stop taunting you with information. Harm was going to have to fix Sturgis of that.

"Oh, gee, and the fact I got second chair means what kind of underwear is the admiral wearing today?" Harm said sarcastically. He stopped what he was doing and glanced up, as if worried. "Strike that," he said hurriedly. "I don't want to know, because then I'll have to wonder how you know."

"Okay, but it's your curiosity that'll kill me, not you," Sturgis said amicably. He leaned down on the floor and picked a paper as his. "Is this what you were looking for?" he asked Harm. Harm glanced at the paper before snatching for it. Sturgis danced away and held it just out of Harm's reach. "Nuh uh uh," Sturgis said. "What's the magic phrase?"

"Please?" Harm said, casting his puppy eyes onto Sturgis. Behind the look, he was plotting his best friend's demise. If Sturgis wasn't careful, he was going to find out that cars could come out of anywhere and everywhere when you're jogging. Harm knew; Sturgis needed to know as personally as Harm did.

"Well, with that sultry look, I was looking more for _I love you_, but I guess that's Mac's foray," Sturgis said, dropping the paper onto the desk. It caught the air and floated down slowly to Harm's desk. Harm, however, wasn't looking at the paper; it was no longer the sole holder of his interest.

"What'd you say?" he asked swiftly. Had Sturgis said . . . Harm almost grinned when Sturgis got the perfect look on his face: a sort of deer who's gotten slammed by a car and is now stumbling slowly to his feet only to meet a four by four coming his way. Harm knew the look well; he'd felt it often enough on his own face.

"I was giving you a yellow light, Commander," Sturgis said after a moment. Harm gave him points for originality, but took several off for the fact that Sturgis's face hadn't changed a bit. "I never see you look like that unless you're winning a woman over."

"What did you say about Mac?" Harm asked. He wasn't to deterred by cheap shots and stupid remarks. He leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow, waiting for Sturgis to talk.

"I didn't say anything about Colonel MacKenzie, Harm, and you know that," Sturgis said in a pleading tone. "I said nothing." He started slowly backing away from Harm. Looking at him, Harm felt momentarily sorry for him. Of course, the key word there was momentarily; it passed over him after a second.

"Oh, I think you said something," Harm said. Behind Sturgis, Mac walked into the room; Harm stood up. This caused Sturgis to step even further back and to stumble into the colonel. "Sturgis!" Harm exclaimed, as if chastising a puppy that had messed on the carpet. "Mac, are you okay?"

Sarah MacKenzie glared at Sturgis from her perch on the sprawled on the floor. As Sturgis scrambled to his feet, Mac allowed Harm the privilege of helping her up. Standing over him as he at last made it to having both feet on the floor, Mac gave him a look that would have iced him over in three seconds if she was able to ice things, Harm concluded. "You," she sputtered, stepping around him and closing the door, "left me with _her_. And she was unbearable." Mac went and stood next to Harm. "Then you come over here and play like a kid with Harm? You're first chair. I should talk to first chair. Didn't you remember?" She crossed her arms over her chest.

Sturgis backed out of the room. "What is it with people and attacking me today?" he asked the two of them. Mac saw Harm cross his arms out of the corner of her eyes. She knew that they must look both slightly silly and slightly intimidating at the same time, in identical stances. "First that old lady on the street today right before lunch, and now you two."

"Dismissed," Mac said with an imperial wave of her hand. He really was getting to be annoying. Perhaps she and Harm should arrange an encountered with a dogwalker and a mad cat the next time Sturgis went jogging.

Harm tapped her on the shoulder. "Uh, Mac," he said. She turned to him expectantly. "This is my office," Harm informed her. She frowned; she obviously hadn't taken that into account.

Her face brightened. "Then dismiss him," she informed Harm. He pursed his lips as if in thought. Sturgis, however, saved him the trouble of answering.

"I don't care who does it or what rank everyone has," Sturgis said. "I'm dismissed!" He scampered quickly out of the office, muttering something about inept lawyers but good hired assassins.

_(asterisk) _

The next afternoon, Sturgis came slowly into Mac's office with Good Lord, dare she hope? chocolates and the case file. She let her face remain neutral until Sturgis tossed the chocolates onto her desk. Then she allowed herself to pounce.

"What're these for?" Mac asked, totally ignoring the file and instead focusing all her attention on the little Hershey's Kisses that he'd brought in with him. "Not my birthday and I don't think you need yellow lighted."

"They," Sturgis said, "are to get you out of your bad mood." He closed the door behind him and turned just in time to catch a Hershey's Kiss that Mac had lobbed at him. "Hey!" he said, before opening the chocolate.

"I," Mac said, "am not in a bad mood. Marines don't get in a bad mood, anyway. We just find it easier than usual to kill someone." She opened a Kiss and looked at Sturgis under lowed eyebrows.

"Marines always find it easy to kill. They live for the gruntwork of disemboweling a man with their bare hands," Sturgis joked. He stopped grinning when he saw Mac give him an appraising look. Silently, he sent a prayer up to the deities to save him when she attacked. He turned serious. "Look, Mac, you've been out of sorts for almost two weeks. You're picking fights with everyone."

"I don't pick fights!" Mac protested vehemently. Sturgis raised a hand to quiet her.

"Tiner is afraid of you. You almost had him in tears yesterday after your little encounter with him. Mac, you know as well as I do that the boy probably has had sex twice in his life, if that much." He studied her for a moment. "Is this about what you said to me about Harm?"

Mac raised her eyebrows to their normal height; it took too much effort to keep them pulled down in a scowl and, besides, she wasn't so certain that it was quite an attractive look. She'd never really thought of testing it in a mirror. She generally considered all her looks fairly attractive, but you never know.

"Why do you think that?" she asked, trying not to frown. Keep this totally un-Harm, she told herself. Otherwise he'll know . . . she stopped, chided herself. This had nothing to do with Harm. And she wasn't picking fights!

"Because," Sturgis said, "it all started then. And it seems like whenever I catch you yelling your heart out at Tiner, all I have to do is look into Harm's office and see him sitting there, pretending not to watch you." He gave a wry grin. "It's like you're displaying for him."

"_Displaying _for him?" Mac sputtered. "Like a peacock?" She gave a short, high life. Unbelievable. Sturgis was really something, wasn't he? Perhaps she'd have to change it from dogwalker to rabid dogs.

"Well, you were displaying your most undesirable traits, so, no," Sturgis said. Mac felt her face fall and she knew that Sturgis saw it too. "I'm trying to help, Mac, not be your enemy. I think you need to talk with Harm."

Mac turned away from Sturgis and threw him another Kiss. This was not going the way that conversations should go. Damn Sturgis and his unflappable ability to drag anything out of her. He was a dangerous, dangerous man. She was thinking of hiring a sniper for his jogging route.

"I don't need to talk to anyone," Mac said in a tight voice. She knew she sounded childish, but she couldn't help it. Why couldn't he just leave it well enough alone? She heard him give a snort. "I don't!" she cried defensively.

"I heard you the first time," Sturgis said mildly. "And I still think you need to talk to Harm. You two are going to be back at each other's throats soon enough. Let's change it from claws to"

"Yellow light, Commander Turner," Mac said.

"gloved hands," Sturgis finished. Mac gave him a reluctant grin. He was good. "Look, trust me. I know Harm, and I know you. It's there, you have to talk."

"Nothing is there, Sturgis," Mac informed him, getting out of her chair. "I don't know what you think you see in Harm, but he doesn't feel that way for me. Trust me," she added, almost bitterly. "I know." She walked to the door.

"Mac, you don't know, that's your problem," Sturgis claimed. "You refuse to look it in the face. Both you and Harm are head over heels and you both act like you aren't . . . worthy of the other one."

"I'm worthy of him!" Mac said angrily. She opened the door. "Good-bye, Sturgis," she said. He walked out the door. "Nice talking to you, shall we do it again soon some day?" She glared at him, then shut the door.

Tiner looked at Turner sympathetically. "She get you too?" he asked the superior office.

Sturgis shook his head. "I got to her," he said.


End file.
